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Soviet Union/CtW Information
Stormfronts campaign CtW objectives In addition to controlling your initial territories, *restore Russia under Soviet control by **Retaking Kamchatka and Kurils from Japan **Retaking Chisinau from Romania **Seizing control of Kiev; Ulanbaatar; Bratislava; Tashkent; Kabul; Changchun-Xinjing; Voronezh; Karelia; and Sebastopol. Notes *Initial difficulty: Fairly easy *Number of capitals: 1 (Moscow) *Number of oilfields/supply centres (Kharkov, Astana, Baku, Ashgabat) *Number of armies: 5 *Enemies: Empire of Japan *Diplomatic personality: Unreliable, Implacable At the beginning of Stormfronts, Russia has just been defeated in a war with Poland, and has signed the Peace of Riga. Even so there are still areas on the map to fight for: Kiev, Voronezh and Sebastopol are still under Anarchist control, Basmachis continue to ravage Soviet Turkestan, and Kamchatka is still under the the Menshevik general Aleksandr Kolchak and his Japanese allies based in Petropavlovsk. Obviously, the first thing you need to do is to re-assert control on Taskent in order to regain control of its vital oil supplies. Once that is done you then have several choices - either attack the Japanese and seize the Kurils and Kamchatla, or consolidate your borders in the West by annexing the Ukraine before Poland or Turkey take advantage of the chaos there. Another area of concern is China and Mongolia. Ever since the fall of the Qing dynasty before the Great War, China has been all but destroyed, with the whole nation under a series of squabbling warlords and the Nationalist government confined to the city of Guangzhou. The problem that you face is that your armies aren't mobile enough to take advantage of the chaos, and it's most likely that the Chinese are the least of your concern — the British in India and the Japanese will most likely be interested in carving up the territory, so rather than take back China wholesale it might be wiser to seize as many Chinese regions as possible, then give them back to the Guangdong government and form an alliance with it. At this point in time, the Chinese will be happy in promises of land, so try and secure as many regions as possible in China and then hand them over to the KMT for a nice new ally to use against Britain and Japan. There is just one niggling problem. If you seize far more land than Britain, it may result in a backlash where major European nations will start ganging up upon you. If you have more land than Britain and declare war at any time, you face plenty of diplomatic crises. *War with Romania also automatically means war with Germany and Greece. *If you declare war against Poland or Finland, Germany and the Oslo Group will also declare war and join up against you. *If you attack Turkey, the Islamic nations as well as Britain, Italy and France may declare war on you. *Similarly attacking the Japanese home islands will also invite retaliation, possibly from Britain, France and the USA. *On the other hand, Bratislava can be easily purchased from the Oslo Group with enough tribute. So as Russia, you will have to be careful about how you fight your wars. Obviously amounts of tribute will have to be paid to keep the peace, the issue is how you will be able to find the Tribute to pay off enemies should they choose to attack you. Ideally, the best strategy to follow is to first buy Kamchatka and possibly the Kurils from the Japanese (this will be a very costly settlement) and then start conquering vast swathes of China once the Ukraine is under your control, along with Mongolia and Turkestan. Once that is done, it is now time to concentrate on Eastern Europe - to win the campaign, you will need to seize control of Western Europe. By now, you should have plenty of tribute so move your armies westward, and position them on the borders with Romania, Poland and Karelia. You should have a vast number of armies on hand, so two armies on Poland, another at Finland and another outside Romania should do the job. Once everything is in place, take Karelia from Finland, Bessarabia from Romania, and then watch the sparks fly. Domination campaign CtW objectives In addition to controlling your initial territories, *Outlast Nazi Germany and Italy (they must be occupied or destroyed) *Britain must be forced to let go of India before the Atomic Era, either by destroying Britain or occupying all Indian territories. *Control Eastern Europe, Central Asia, Eurasia, Middle East. Notes *Initial difficulty: Fairly easy *Number of capitals: 2 (Moscow, Sverdlovsk) *Number of oilfields/supply centres (Kharkov, Astana, Tashkent, Baku, Ashgabat) *Number of armies: 7 *Allies: Republic of China *Diplomatic personality: Unreliable, Implacable Russia has two capitals: Moscow, and the Urals. Russia has three leaders: *First in place is Josef Stalin, the initial leader. *If the Allies (somehow) occupy Russia, a new leader is elected to replace Stalin, this being Gavril' Constantinovich Romanov. *If Russia is occupied by a Communist Argentina or even China, the leader who takes over Stalin is Lavrenty Beria. In the case of Fascist Argentina, Japan, Germany or Italy, Russia will not be occupied, but will be instead annexed for "Lebensraum". The Soviet AI isn't really aggressive towards other nations, and prefers to create vassal states as opposed to destroying them completely, with the exception of two nations: Finland and the Oslo Group. It however becomes aggressive against all other nations except those which were aligned to it on two thresholds: both Spain and France become communist. In which case, the Soviets will become sufficiently emboldened enough to attack all other European nations with an eye towards occupying all of them. At the same time, an alliance with the Soviet Union is the most profitable thing anyone can do, but nations not aligned to communism will discover that communist ideas will begin to result in unrest - this builds up first in areas with a fortification level of 1, and later on by the end of the game areas with a fortification level of 4. The most powerful faction of Age of Darkness, the Soviet Union has several advantages which other nations don't have. The first is that like the USA, China, and Britain, it has more than one starting army, thanks to its two capitals at Moscow and Sverdlovsk. The second is that unlike the British or the Americans, the territory of the Soviet Union is a single contiguous mass, meaning that if armies are required, you will be able to bring them to the front fairly quickly. Finally, it doesn't have a broad front that faces many potential rivals, unlike America's exposure to Japan or Britain's exposure to Italy and Germany. Finally, the Soviet Union also is in possession of a vast amount of natural resources, especially in its eastern lands. But then, if so, what's stopping you from conquering the world then? The first problem is that tribute is a problem initially, where the cost to declare war is initially set at 800 tribute. Although you have vast resources, you might be forced to play a wait-and-see game. This is especially so since a lot of parts of Russia aren't very well-developed, least of all your Eurasian lands - Russia's industry is all focussed in Central Europe, centred around Leningrad, Moscow and Kharkov. There are several ways of earning tribute - either by remaining at peace for a long time, or allying with as many nations as possible. The last one is extremely lucrative as it results in the generation of lots of tribute, both for the USSR and for the nation it is allied with. Unlike other nations, the USSR have a different progression: see the page titled Tribute for the exact formula. However, the least developed areas of your empire will begin to rebel from Turn 14 onwards if you remain in an alliance with the Soviets, so there are three ways to go about this - #Ally early with the Soviet Union, and build up everything to a territorial strength of 2 or more at all times, especially before you attack #Another method is to build up areas to territorial level of 3 or higher before allying. #The third is to align yourself with Communism. France, Argentina and Iraq can choose this course of action during the Domination campaign. Only the Iraqis, Argentina and France do not suffer from this issue as long as they are fully aligned with the Comintern. Other nations that can be aligned to the Soviets also include India, Spain, and China. So because of the cost in tribute, most nations will end up having a wait-and-see strategy, and the Soviet Union is no exception. Try and ally with one of the nations in Europe, and accumulate as much tribute as possible from trade which can then be invested into building up your eastern territories into industrial powerhouses - the reason for this is that fortification of existing areas is costly, and your eastern frontiers are threatened by several other powers, most notably Japan and America. This also bumps up the amount of tribute available to you which should allow you to declare war on other nations and possibly vassalise them. With tribute dealt with, how do you then go about conquering the world for the glory of the working class? well, there are several locations you should pay attention to: Ulanbaatar, Kabul, and Chishinau - these areas are not occupied by any faction, and can be easily picked off. Ulanbaatar should be paid special attention, since it sits right on China's doorstep, and also serves to extend the front with any future conflict against Japan. Finland is the best target to pick off - although it might be supported by the Oslo Group early on, it will give you a free army as well as a springboard into Central Europe, and also removes a potential ally for either the Axis or the Allies later on. Alternatively, spy missions can be run for smaller amounts of tribute, allowing you to annex territories and influence politics without many problems. In summary, #Acquire and upgrade as many territories as possible to increse your tribute per turn. #The Iraqis, Argentina, India, Spain, France and China are ideal allies that can be influenced to join you. #Form an alliance with as many European powers as possible to reduce the probability of fighting on multiple fronts. #Conquer Ulanbaatar before the Chinese or Japanese do. #Spy missions can be run for smaller amounts of tribute, allowing you to annex territories and influence politics without many problems. Territories covered Central Europe *Moscow *Leningrad *Kharkov *Kiev *Odessa *Minsk *Stalingrad Eurasia *Chelyabinsk *Sverdlovsk *Novossibirsk *North Sakhalin *Uzbekistan (under Basmachis) *Kirghizstan *Tajikistan *Turkmenistan *Astana *Yakutsk *Kamchatka (to Japan) *Krasnoyask *Yerevan *Tiflis *Baku